Collecting debt in Nebraska: licensing, bonds and statutes of limitations.
Anyone operating a collection agency (soliciting claims from more than one creditor) must be licensed by the Nebraska Collection Agency Licensing Board (Secretary of State) through NMLS, keep a regular office in Nebraska, post a surety bond of $5,000 to $15,000 scaled to the number of solicitors, and renew by December 31 each year.
General information, not legal advice. Every figure on this page links to the statute, rule or regulator page it came from, with the operative words quoted, and the date we verified it. Rules change; confirm with the regulator or your counsel before acting, and tell us if something here is out of date.
Do you need a license to collect in Nebraska?
Nebraska licenses collection agencies through NMLS with a $400 application ($200 license plus $200 investigation), a $75 annual renewal due December 31, and a $5,000 to $15,000 bond scaled to solicitor count; debt buyers collecting in their own name and attorneys collecting in their own names are exempt. A licensee must keep a regular physical office in Nebraska, but an agency regulated in its home state that only communicates with Nebraska debtors for non-Nebraska clients is not prohibited from doing so without a license.
Tiered by number of licensed solicitors: fewer than 5 solicitors $5,000; 5 to 15 solicitors $10,000; 16 or more solicitors $15,000. Board may require a higher amount but never more than $100,000 (45-608; 433 NAC 2-012.03D). Bond is payable to the Board, conditioned on performing client agreements and remitting net proceeds within 45 days after each month-end, filed with the Secretary of State; must be furnished before issuance and continued at each renewal (45-611(2)). Renewal requires the original bond or continuation certificate on paper with original signatures and surety seal (433 NAC 2-003.02B13). No cash-deposit alternative appears in the statute.
45-605.01 (Laws 2020, LB909, eff. Oct. 1, 2020) authorizes NMLS licensing; 433 NAC 2-003.01: 'Each application to be considered by the Board will be submitted through the Registry' (NMLS, defined in 2-001.08). SOS page: 'The Nebraska Collection Agency Licensing Board will be using the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System for its collection agency licensing going forward. If you are a new applicant, you will need to file your application on NMLS. We are no longer accepting paper applications.' Branch offices and solicitor lists are also submitted through NMLS.
433 NAC 2-012.01A 'Collection Agency License Fee--$ 200.00' plus 012.01B 'Collection Agency License Investigation Fee--$ 200.00' (total $400 to the Board), 'In addition to the fees charged by the Registry' (NMLS processing fees). Rule amended effective 11/1/2021; the same two amounts appear in the Secretary of State's own Chapter 2 PDF (Dec. 2017 scan, then numbered 013.01A/B). Statutory caps: license fee 'not to exceed two hundred dollars' (45-620); investigation fee 'not to exceed two hundred fifty dollars' (45-606(1)). 012.02: 'Fees are not refundable. However, an applicant that is denied a license may request the License Fee be waived upon re-application.'
annual, renews December 31
Branch office certificate required before doing business at a branch (45-609): initial $50.00, renewal $35.00 (433 NAC 2-012.01D, E; statutory caps $50/$35 in 45-620). SOS forms page: 'Fee is $50 per branch'; SOS: 'Branch Offices: Apply through NMLS.' Solicitor's certificate new or renewal $1.00 per solicitor (012.01F; statutory cap $10 in 45-620); SOS: 'The fee is $1.00 per solicitor.' Every employee who solicits or collects needs a solicitor's certificate (45-610). NMLS charges its own processing fees on top (45-605.01).
physical office: regular office in Nebraska with complete records of Nebraska collections and claims (45-607(2); 45-612; 433 NAC 2-009); solicitors may work remotely (Guidance Document 20-01); solicitor's certificates for every employee who solicits or collects, $1 each (45-610; 433 NAC 2-004); branch licenses: branch office certificate for each branch (45-609); financial statements: verified financial statement with application (45-606(1)); Board may require GAAP/audited statements at any time (45-619; 433 NAC 2-007.03); manager or executive officer with at least two years' collection experience, unless waived by the Board (45-607(1)); resident agent: formation documents and name/address of resident agent for entity applicants; good standing in Nebraska verified (433 NAC 2-003.02A1vi, vii); foreign entity must be authorized to do business in Nebraska and in good standing (45-607(2); 433 NAC 2-003.02A1vii); ten customer references for out-of-state applicants (433 NAC 2-003.02A1iv); personal references for individuals and partnerships; Officers' Interrogatory and Oath of Applicant forms (SOS forms page); monthly remittance to clients within 45 days of month-end (bond condition, 45-608); collection payment records kept two years (433 NAC 2-007.04); disqualification for fraud conviction or failure-to-account judgment within past five years (45-607(2)); notice of changes in name, address, managers, or 10%+ ownership within 30 days; 50%+ ownership change requires a new license (433 NAC 2-005); applications are considered at the Board's quarterly meetings
Exemptions. 45-602(3): 'Collection agency does not mean or include (a) regular employees of a single creditor, (b) banks, (c) trust companies, (d) savings and loan associations, (e) building and loan associations, (f) abstract companies doing an escrow business, (g) duly licensed real estate brokers and agents when the claims or accounts being handled by such broker or agent are related to or are in connection with such brokers' or agents' regular real estate business, (h) express and telegraph companies subject to public regulation and supervision, (i) attorneys at law handling claims and collections in their own names and not operating a collection agency under the management of a layperson, (j) any person, firm, corporation, or association handling claims, accounts, or collections under an order or orders of any court, or (k) a person, firm, corporation, or association which, for valuable consideration, purchases accounts, claims, or demands of another and then, in such purchaser's own name, proceeds to assert or collect such accounts, claims, or demands'. 45-601 also allows a regular employee of a licensee to work without a separate license, and an out-of-state-regulated agency residing in another state to communicate with Nebraska debtors.
How long can a debt be sued on in Nebraska?
Nebraska has not decided whether credit-card debt gets the four-year unwritten-contract period or the five-year written-contract period; four is the safe assumption unless the creditor can produce a writing signed by the debtor. A voluntary partial payment restarts the clock and, under Nebraska Supreme Court precedent, revives a debt that was already time-barred.
“an action upon a specialty, or any agreement, contract, or promise in writing, or foreign judgment, can only be brought within five years.”
Read on the Nebraska Legislature site by pass A and re-read by the reconciler (the site answers with a browser user agent; it returned HTTP 429 to pass B, which used FindLaw's verbatim copy). Foreign judgments also 5 years under this section.
“An action upon a contract, not in writing, expressed or implied, or an action upon a liability created by statute, other than a forfeiture or penalty, can only be brought within four years.”
“an action to enforce the obligation of a party to pay a note payable at a definite time must be commenced within six years after the due date or dates stated in the note or, if a due date is accelerated, within six years after the accelerated due date.”
Nebraska adopted uniform UCC 3-118 with the six-year rule. Pass B's open question (text not read on the official page) was closed by the reconciler reading the legislature's UCC page directly; subsections (a) and (b) match the uniform text. Demand notes: six years after demand.
“While some courts have viewed collections of third-party (bank) credit card debt as actions based on 'written agreements,' and some have considered them to be based on 'open accounts,' the Nebraska Supreme Court has not yet addressed the issue.”
UNSETTLED in Nebraska appellate law. No Nebraska Supreme Court or Court of Appeals decision classifies a consumer credit-card account; a reconciler search of both courts on CourtListener for 'credit card' with 25-205 or 25-206 returned only Keith v. Data Enterprises, 27 Neb. App. 23 (2019), a merchant card-processing contract case not on point. Jenkins (D. Neb. 2008) treats a claim pleaded as an open account as 4 years under 25-206 and says it is 'arguable' that 5 years under 25-205 applies if the creditor can prove a written cardholder agreement or signed receipts. The legislature's official annotations to 25-206 say a contract partly written and partly oral falls under the four-year section (Grant v. Williams) and that the statute 'runs from the date of an account stated' (Estate of Black). Practical rule: 4 years unless the collector holds a writing signed by the debtor; treat 5 as the outer bound.
“If execution is not sued out within five years after the date of entry of any judgment ... or if five years have intervened between the date of the last execution issued on such judgment and the time of suing out another writ of execution thereon, such judgment ... shall become dormant and shall cease to operate as a lien on the estate of the judgment debtor.”
Nebraska uses dormancy and revivor rather than a fixed judgment life. A judgment goes dormant if no execution issues within 5 years of entry or within 5 years of the last execution (25-1515). A dormant judgment 'may be revived in the same manner as is prescribed for reviving actions before judgment; Provided, no judgment shall be revived unless action to revive the same be commenced within ten years after such judgment became dormant' (25-1420, read on the legislature site). Official annotation to 25-205: 'A domestic judgment is a specialty and suit thereon is barred after five years from date of judgment' (Farmers & Merchants Bank v. Merryman, 126 Neb. 684 (1934)); annotation to 25-1420: a judgment not revived within ten years after dormancy 'is forever barred'. Mechanism per Capital One Bank v. Tafoya, 31 Neb. App. 875 (2023): conditional order of revivor and notice of hearing. Nelssen holds 25-216 partial payments do NOT toll the 10-year revivor deadline because a judgment is not a contract. Issuing execution every 5 years avoids dormancy entirely; hard stop 15 years from the last execution if nothing is done.
25-201: 'A civil action shall be commenced only within the time prescribed in this chapter, after the cause of action has accrued.' Official annotations to 25-206: the statute 'runs from the date of an account stated, and not from incurring of original debt' (Estate of Black, 1933) and an action on a commission account 'was barred four years from last item.' Under 25-216 a voluntary part payment or written acknowledgment restarts the period from that date, so in practice the clock runs from the last voluntary payment. Jenkins (D. Neb. 2008) describes the credit-card period as running from the last signed receipt or the last payment, 'whichever is later'. No Nebraska Supreme Court case on credit-card accrual found.
“In any cause founded on contract, when any part of the principal or interest shall have been voluntarily paid, or an acknowledgment of an existing liability, debt or claim, or any promise to pay the same shall have been made in writing, an action may be brought in such case within the period prescribed for the same, after such payment, acknowledgment or promise”
Nelssen: 'This statute has long been understood to provide for tolling of a statute of limitations if a party makes a voluntary payment of part of a debt.' Payment must be voluntary, by the debtor or someone authorized (Moffitt v. Carr: involuntary credits from a foreclosure sale do not count), and made under circumstances which justify the inference that the debtor recognizes the whole debt as an existing liability (McShane, official annotation). Does not apply to judgments (Nelssen).
“or an acknowledgment of an existing liability, debt or claim, or any promise to pay the same shall have been made in writing, an action may be brought in such case within the period prescribed for the same, after such payment, acknowledgment or promise”
Acknowledgment or promise must be in writing; partial payment need not be.
25-3203(1)(a): 'if a claim is substantively based: (i) Upon the law of one other state, the limitation period of that state applies'. 25-3203(2) resident-plaintiff exception: a claim barred where it arose 'may be maintained in this state if the plaintiff is a resident of this state who has owned the cause of action since it accrued and the cause of action is not barred under the applicable statute of limitations of this state.' 25-3205 unfairness escape clause referenced in (1)(a). The old one-way borrowing statute 25-215 is repealed.
The debt exists but cannot be sued on; a suit can be defended by raising the defense.
No Nebraska statute requires a collector to disclose that a debt is time-barred. The Collection Agency Act's sections cover licensing, bonding and public-debt contracts only; chapter 25 art. 2 has no disclosure rule. Federal Reg. F 12 CFR 1006.26 governs. Jenkins v. General Collection Co. (D. Neb. 2008) treats suing on time-barred debt as an FDCPA and Nebraska Consumer Protection Act issue, not a state disclosure duty. Some consumer blogs claim a Nebraska disclosure duty but cite nothing.
25-216 is silent on already-barred debts, but the Nebraska Supreme Court holds otherwise from the statute's 'own vigor'. Ebersole syllabus (read on CAP): 'A part payment operates to revive a contract debt, barred by the statute of limitations, of its own vigor and not as evidence of an acknowledgment or new promise'; the notes there were conceded barred and the court held the creditor's application of insurance proceeds to them was a lawful part payment that revived them. Blair syllabus: 'Voluntary part payment of an existing debt arising upon contract will toll the statute of limitations, and, if the debt is barred by the statute, will revive it'; opinion: 'even if it were [barred], the undisputed and substantial payments made revived the debt.' Both propositions appear in the legislature's official annotations to 25-216. Limits: payment must be voluntary, by the debtor or an authorized agent, under circumstances implying recognition of the whole debt (McShane; Moffitt v. Carr). The debt is therefore unenforceable, not extinguished, and a voluntary partial payment revives it for a fresh period.
Where this page comes from.
Researched in two independent passes from primary sources (the statute, the administrative code and the regulator's own pages), then reconciled against the text where the passes disagreed. Verified 2026-09-20. Licensing is re-verified quarterly and limitation periods annually.
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